Return of the Crimson Guard (16 page)

Shouts sounded behind. Boots stamped the ground. Quinn was making for the closest arm of woods, avoiding the nearby vineyards. Whistling announced crossbow fire. Distantly, horses’ hooves slammed the ground. Ghelel cursed; there was no way they could outrun mounted pursuit. What had Quinn been thinking? But then, there was no way they could have remained within.

Further missiles whipped the air nearby. She put them out of her mind, concentrated on running. All that remained ahead was the moonlit swath of a turned field then the cover of dense woods would
be theirs. Ahead, Quinn gestured to the right: horsemen racing the treeline, all in Malazan greys. Fanderay take them! They'd been so
close.

Quinn kept glancing back, ‘Keep going!’

Ghelel put everything she could into her speed but the soft uneven earth clung to her boots. The horsemen cut ahead of them. They turned their mounts side to side, swords bright in the cold light. Quinn made directly for the nearest. The man's fearlessness almost brought a shout of admiration from Ghelel. He sloughed the man's swing then did something to the horse that made it rear, shrieking. The man fell, tumbling sideways. Quinn ignored him to turn to the next. Ghelel reached their line. The nearest Malazan had already dismounted. He thrust as if she would obligingly impale herself but she stopped short, avoiding the jab, then spun putting everything she had into a thrust of the gauche. The blade caught him full in the stomach, was held by the mail. Perhaps only an inch of blade entered him. Yet she'd been trained to expect this – more importantly the man had just had the breath knocked from him. She knelt then straightened thrusting up with the short blade to feel it enter upwards behind his chin. It locked there so tightly the man's convulsion tore it from her hand. She turned away to check the next threat, thinking,
Burn forgive me
–
I have killed a man.

Quinn was engaging two opponents, the rest were closing.

‘Run, damn you!’ he yelled.

‘No.’
She thrust at the nearest; he parried, declined to counterattack.
Damn them! They're holding us up.
Hooves shook the ground from behind. She turned: a calvaryman, leaning sideways, blade raised. She thrust hers up crossways. The blow smashed her arm, her hilts slammed high on her chest and she was down.

Yelling came dimly through her ringing ears; rearing horses kicked up mud around her. Her breath steamed in the cold night air. She climbed to her feet, weaving, blinking. Quinn still stood, dodging, parrying blows from above. She bent to retrieve her longsword from the churned mud. Another horse reared, shrieking, stumbled backwards into the brush and Quinn thrust her after it. She fell, clawing at the struggling animal. Its rider was pinned beneath; she ignored him. Quinn forced her on. Together they fell into the thick brush. Branches slashed her face, cutting her cheeks, tore at her hair. She pushed forward.

They burst out into low brush and the thick entangled branches of young pines. Quinn took her arm and suddenly she found she had to support him. Longsword still in her grip, she held him up. Bright
blood smeared his left side where his shirt hung open, sliced. He smiled blearily at her, his grey hair wet with sweat. ‘Gave them a good run we did. Proud of you.’

‘Shh, now. We'll be all right.’

‘No, no. You go on. Leave me. Run.’

‘No.’

He raised his hilt to her, saluting. ‘Proud of you. You did well, Ghelel Rhik Tayliin. A pleasure to serve.’

Hooves pounded the treeline, shouts for the crossbowmen. ‘We're not done yet.’ What did he mean, Tayliin? The only Tayliins she knew of had ruled during the last Hegemony. Kellanved and Dancer had the last of them slain when they took Tali.

They heard more horses thundering up the slope of the field. Quinn urged her on. Just pushing her away made him fall to his knees. She couldn't leave him like that and put an arm around him to raise him up. ‘Apologies,’ he mumbled.

‘What did you mean, Tayliin?’

The old man just smiled, his face as pale as sun-bleached cloth. Shouts snapped her head around – angry yelling – the clash of weaponry. What in the name of the Queen of Mysteries was going on out there? Why hadn't they come for them?

Silence but for the thumping of hooves and horses’ nickering.

‘Hello within! Are you there, Quinn?’ someone bellowed from the field.

The weaponmaster raised a finger to his lips, gave Ghelel a wink.

‘It's me, damn you! You know my voice!’

Quinn struggled to sheathe his longsword. Ghelel helped him.

‘Very well!’ came a vexed call. ‘It's me, Amaron!’

Quinn smiled. ‘What are you doing here!’ he called back and winced in pain. He finished, softer, ‘Haven't you heard of delegating?’

‘Yes, yes. Came as quick as I could. Come on down, will you.’

Quinn waved her forward. ‘It's safe, m'Lady. Amaron was my commander.’

‘Your commander?’

‘In the, ah, military. I served under him.’ He tried to walk but stumbled. She held him up. ‘My thanks – apologies.’

‘Here.’ Arm around him, Ghelel guided him forward.

‘Thank you. Not the impression I wish to give.’

‘Togg can take that.’

‘You curse like a marine now, m'Lady. I despair.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Do not apologize. Offer sarcasm.’

‘Always teaching, hey?’

‘Touché.’

They pushed their way through to stumble out on to the field and into a unit of some thirty cavalry, the horses’ breath clouding the night air. Almost all Quinn's weight now rested on Ghelel's arm. Dismounted soldiers immediately took him from her. Calls sounded for a healer. They laid him on a horse blanket.

‘Who of you is Amaron?’ she asked.

‘I.’ A man dismounted, his boots thumping to the mud. He was a giant of a fellow, Napan, in blackened unadorned mail beneath dark-green riding cloaks.

‘He's lost a lot of blood.’

‘He's in good hands.’

‘What of the Sellaths? Can you take me to them?’

Amaron rested his gauntleted hands at his waist, studied her. He dropped his gaze. ‘I'm sorry – Ghelel. They've been taken. Fist Kal'il will no doubt be using them, and others, as guarantors of safe passage.’

‘Safe passage?’

‘Out of Tali. By ship, probably. The capital is now under the control of a troika of Talian noble families.’

Ghelel glanced about at the men; none wore Malazan greys. Amaron himself wore no insignia or sigil at all. In fact the calvarymen wore dark blue – the old Talian colours. ‘Who commands?’

‘Choss. General Choss has been granted military command.’

‘Not the same Choss who was High Fist for a time?’

‘Yes, the same.’

‘I thought he was dead.’

‘That was the general idea.’

Ghelel found herself studying this man; Quinn had called him his old commander. ‘What of you? May I ask what you do?’

A shrug. ‘Whatever needs be done. You could say I'm in charge of intelligence gathering.’

Un-huh.
‘Well, thank you, Amaron, for our deliverance.’ He bowed. ‘But may I accompany Quinn?’

‘Certainly. We'll take him to the manor house, yes? There we can have a private conversation.’

Yes, a private conversation about certain ravings of a delirious wounded man perhaps?
Until she knew whether Quinn should have revealed what he had she would play the innocent. Right now she
wasn't certain how much she trusted this fellow. Quinn clearly did but the man felt cold to her, oddly detached. Quinn's condition didn't seem to affect him at all. She needed the weaponmaster conscious and well. Startled, she realized that he was possibly the last remaining link to her old life. She hurried to follow the soldiers carrying him down to the house. Their way was lit by the stables now sending tall flames high into the night sky.

* * *

Twelve days after descending from the mountains they reached the squalid village Traveller named Canton's Landing – no more than a collection of straw-roofed huts next to a slumped moat and ancient burned-down palisade overlooking the tidal flats of the Explorer's Sea.

‘We must wait here?’ Ereko asked.

He nodded, his guarded, lined brown face revealing nothing.

Ereko sighed.
Enchantress give me the patience to endure.

It was close to evening and they claimed an abandoned hut. Ereko attempted to stretch his cramped arms and legs and failed. Human dwellings simply did not agree with him. He'd always been better off sleeping under the stars. A villager, an old woman, came hobbling up with a basket under one arm. ‘A meal approaches,’ he told Traveller. ‘I wish they wouldn't. From the look of them they need the food more than us.’

‘They are afraid of us and it's all that they have to offer. I also believe they want us to do something for them.’

Grinning a mouth empty of teeth, bowing, the old woman set out bowls of fish mush and hard-baked bread.

‘Send your headman,’ Traveller said to her in Talian. ‘We would speak with him.’

‘The headman is dead. His nephew will speak with you. I will send him tomorrow.’

Later, while Traveller slept, Ereko stared out over the embers of the fire to the phosphor-glow of the waves rolling in to the strand. He saw another sea in his thoughts, a far angrier and savage sea, this one iron-grey and heaving with cliff-tall breakers. That last season the Riders had arrived early at the Stormwall. The section of curtain wall he faced remained quiet as the Riders no longer challenged him. Indeed, these last few years his time upon the wall had actually been boring. Of course this pleased his Korelan captors no end; one more portion of the wall they need not worry about.

Ereko had watched the distant figure as he was chained as all were at the ankle. Watched as he'd been lowered to his station, a narrow stone ledge, without commotion or resistance. The man sat unperturbed as the ice-skeined waves smashed the wall and the spray obscured him. Many pointed as Riders surfaced far out in the strait. Some screamed, begged for release. His man remained sitting and the whisper of a fearful suspicion touched Ereko: might this fellow be one of those brave enough to refrain from defending their piece of the wall, sacrificing themselves to contribute in a small way to the enormous structure's erosion?

A file of the Riders closed, distant dark shapes upon the waves. The otherworldly cold that accompanied them gripped even Ereko's limbs. Frost limned the leathers of his sleeves and trousers. Ice thickened over the stones making the footing slick and treacherous. As the Riders neared, the Korelan Chosen tossed down weapons to those lost souls lowest and most exposed.

He was relieved when his man stood, sword in hand. The waves breasted ever higher. Their foaming crests entirely submerged some defenders. He watched closely now; the first rank would strike soon. Arrows and bolts shot from above arced down among the broaching Riders. Ice-jagged lances couched at hips, they rolled forward mounted upon what seemed half wave, half ice-sculpted horse. Armour of ice-scales glittered opalescent and emerald among the whitecaps.

Spray obscured the first strike. When the waters pulled back his man still stood. Up and down the curtain wall men clashed against wave-born Riders. Most failed, of course, for what mere man or woman could oppose such eldritch alien sorcery? Auroras played like waves themselves across the night sky. The lights of another world, or so claimed the Korelri.

In the pause between ranks of attacking Riders the waters withdrew revealing most stations empty or supporting fallen prisoners hanging by their ankle fetters like grotesque fruit. Korelri Chosen descended on ropes to clear away the dead. New prisoners were lowered, arms flailing. These the Chosen did not bother securing by the ankles.